When Laverna Clark was working at Breed Technologies making seatbelts, she blamed the Mexican people when jobs from her plant went South.
Then she joined the Tennessee Economic Renewal Network - formerly known as the Tennessee Industrial Renewal Network - and went with the group on trips to Mexico.
"I worked in that factory for 31 years, and a lot of jobs left to Mexico," she said. "I always thought, they're taking our jobs; it's the Mexicans who are taking our jobs."
After visiting Mexico, however, and observing working conditions there firsthand, Clark changed her mind.
"It was big corporations taking our jobs, and the conditions they (the Mexicans) were working under were deplorable," she said.
TERN on Friday sponsored a group of Mexican labor activists who held a press conference at the University of Tennessee while on their way to Miami to protest Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings (FTAA) that would extend the North American Free Trade Agreement to 33 countries.
NAFTA removed almost all trade restrictions between Mexico, Canada and the United States. FTAA talks begin Sunday. Since it was approved in 1994, many American companies have moved their operations to Mexico to take advantage of cheaper labor.
According to TERN, the Knoxville area has lost 2,160 jobs as a result of NAFTA, and Tennessee has lost more than 25,000 jobs. TERN is a statewide coalition of labor, community, student and religious groups dedicated to economic reform.
"Tennessee workers have every reason to be concerned," Clark said. "There's no future in the way things are going."
Huberto Juarez Nunez, a Mexican economist on the tour, said his country had high hopes in the beginning over NAFTA, hoping it would be easier for Mexicans to migrate to the United States and that NAFTA would improve the Mexican economy. Both were lies, Nunez said.
He said the agreement benefits American manufacturers of electronics, computers, automobiles and clothing, who cut production costs by transferring "labor to other countries using U.S. materials."
While many low-wage jobs were created in Mexico, a lot of the jobswere lost when the American economy went into recession in 2000, he said.
"No opportunities in free trade are developing - only benefits for large companies," he said.
Josefina Hernandez Ponce, leader of the Independent Union of Mex Mode Co. workers in Puebla, Mexico, said the jobs at her company - a producer of sports apparel - developed because of NAFTA.
"The workers were abused physically and verbally," Ponce said. "We had to organize ourselves to protect ourselves."
Now, Ponce said, the workers are worried that if FTAA becomes a reality, the company will move its contract "somewhere where it's not threatened by an independent union."
Jeannine de la Torre Ugarte, assistant director of the Catholic Hispanic Ministry of the Diocese of Knoxville, said the poor working conditions in Mexico are "increasing immigration in our area - forced immigration."
"Trade agreements should respect the human dignity of all people," she said. "People have a right to participate in the economic life of society."
Kathy McCandless, a member of the United Steelworkers of America, Local 90, at Knoxville chemical manufacturer Rohm & Haas, said when this area loses jobs to Mexico and other countries, they are being replaced by "lower paying, substandard'' jobs.
McCandless said one thing that would help is to "buy American and compliment people who buy American."
Business writer Rebecca Ferrar may be reached at 865-342-6357.
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